VERO BEACH – McKee Botanical Garden is hosting a luncheon, lecture and book signing with Tatiana Holway, author of The Flower of Empire: An Amazonian Water Lily, The Quest to Make it Bloom, and the World it Created on Thursday, January 17, 2019.
Tatiana Holway is an independent scholar and academic consultant with a doctorate in Victorian literature and society. Author of several studies of Dickens and popular culture, she also serves on the advisory board for the Nineteenth-Century Collections Online Global Archiving Project. Currently, she lives in Providence, Rhode Island where she pursues a passion for gardening.
Tatiana Holway’s story of the Victoria regia reveals the role this magnificent lily played in Victorian life, art and culture in England, particularly in the intense race among prominent Britons to be the first to coax the flower to bloom. From alligator-laden jungle ponds to the heights of Victorian society, The Flower of Empire unfolds the marvelous odyssey of this wonder of nature in a revealing work of cultural history.
McKee Botanical Garden has two different species of Victoria lilies. Victoria amazonica and a hybrid between the V. cruziana and the V. Longwood species. McKee’s lilies are more like annuals, as they typically bloom in summer when the water temperature is over 75 degrees and are dormant in the fall and winter months.
The cost to attend this event is $50 per person, which includes the luncheon and an autographed book. A luncheon served by Sealantro of the Garden Café will begin at noon and will be followed by an illustrated talk on the book and book signing with Tatiana.
For more information, please visit www.mckeegarden.org or call (772) 794-0601.
About McKee Botanical Garden
McKee Botanical Garden is a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to nurture and enhance a historic garden in a unique tropical setting for the education, enjoyment and enrichment of all. McKee Botanical Garden is located at 350 US Highway 1 in Vero Beach.
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